Tarzan, some might be hand painted and some might be digitally created, as everything done these days in movies in the DEEGEETAHL age
one aspect/difference of the CAPS i wanna emphasise is its digital nature.
If the film is scanned.rendered.composited in the CAPS, the master is the digital CAPS file.
On conventional animation the "master" is an exposed piece of film negative. Exposed film is an "analogue" (a copy) that tries to imitate the "analogue" image that the lens creates from the original art, and each film copy element exposed is an "analogue" of the preceeding element. Due to the way films are viewed duplicated etc this makes for potential different results or degradations (or lack thereof). The image that a lens creates, is also an "analogue" (a copy) of the original image in front of it, since it's photons are modified by the lens
, before it reaches the negative. An analogue can be very similar to the original but it's degraded, however minutely.
you can read it again if you like
Lets look at two differeing ways of watching animation
Conventional filmed animation:
handmade art -> camera lens -> (35mm film negative) -> film interpositive -> film internegative -> film print -> projector lens and vibrations -> eye
CAPS:
handmade art -> (high resolution optics/scan* + digitally created art digital file)-DVI fixed pixel direct view display -> eye
( ) means master
a -> indicates an analog step (analog copying/degradation)
a - indicates a digital step or digital copying/cloning/transmision of data with no data degradation (it's the same data)
So what's different? the degradation that analog creates by trying to make a copy (an analogue) that looks like the original
As you can see, the CAPS till it's transfered to an analog step it remains the original data.
For example two aplications of CAPS.
First lets imagine an IMAX film done super right on film derived from CAPS:
handmade art -> (high resolution optics/scan + digitally created art digital file)-laser render onto IMAX film print -> projector lens and vibrations -> eye
you just bypassed several film steps and the camera lens with their increased grain and color changes and sharpness degradation. The IMAX film step being 40 x 70 mm it's of a very high resolution so most of the digital master quality is preserved and the big format minimizes projector lens/vibration losses. You could say the IMAX print becomes the original film negative as if like it was photographed from the original art. in a sense.
Or CAPS to DVD:
handmade art -> (high resolution optics/scan + digitally created art digital file)-mathematical data downrez to digital NTSC-compressed digital DVD-DVI fixed pixel direct view display -> eye
Apart from the downrezing of the data (less detail) and compression artifacts for DVD, your DVI display would be showing you THE master. Not a copy (analogue = tries to look like) of the master but the master. Cus its made of data from the digital file.
now compare with a possible non CAPS DVD
handmade art -> camera lens -> (film negative) -> film interpositive -> film internegative -> film print ->high resolution optics/scan digital file-mathematical data downrez to digital NTSC-compressed digital DVD-DVI fixed pixel direct view display -> eye
what do you get? A copy of a copy of a copy of an analogue master (that was created tru a normal camera lens)
Not THE master.
What if you did the filmed animation DVD the best way?
Like what about Snow White?:
handmade art -> camera lens -> (film negative) -> high resolution optics/scan digital file-mathematical data downrez to digital NTSC-compressed digital DVD-DVI fixed pixel direct view display -> eye
so here you're watching the master (in this case the film negative) again. Compared to the CAPS master, it's a master that has negative film grain and emulsion/camera lens color changes/sharpness losses from the original art.
NOW if the film negative step and the camera optics have enough quality (high resolution fine grain emulsion of suficient size negative area and excellent lens) and you know the sharpness losses and the color distortions of the emulsion, you can digitaly compensate for those also. (And of course Snow White and most of Disney films were filmed in b/w Technicolor so theoreticaly you can digitally reconstruct the original color from the b/w negatives if you know what you're doing
)
So in the end, the end
result depends on the original film or the CAPS data file quality and the copying steps in between it (And how light is emitted in the screen in front of your eyes to0 :-p)
CAPS being digital in it's nature makes the distribution of the data before it reaches your eyes have a better chance of arriving unchanged...
Brother Bear color banding? la la la
So going back to this thread topic
if they take The Little Mermaids original negative and do a high resolution scan and do it right i'm sure it'll look mighty fine, don;t worry if its 35mm film (12mm x 21mm) or CAPS sourced. (Or both!
) ok?
*
ok sharp eyed thinkers might say buuuut dethi dont the scanner has a lens (or something) optics and a scanner sensor too and wouldnt the image that goes trought them have the equivalent of an analogue (a copy) of the original art?
brownie!
yes but a CAPS scan is more like what you get when you make a photocopy of a typewritten 8 x 10 sheet of paper, while the film version is what you'd get if you photograph the 8 x 10 typewritten sheet with your 35mm film camera.
(Actually that would be if you shot your movie in VistaVision! (24 x 36mm). 35mm theatrical movies are shot in an even smaller format than 35mm still photos in what's called the 35mm half-frame format (Minox anyone) for photography (having just a 18 x 24mm maximum aperture) )
So itsa Large Format vs 35mm kinda thing image adquisition kinda thing you know?
In a way.
So the CAPS scan sensor created image it's like.. mm.. well.. like
THE master, man! :-p
